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CNET editors' rating:
3.5 stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 74 reviews
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Product summary
The good: Small and light; strong battery life; automatic volume control; IM capability; support for EDGE data speeds.
The bad: Poorly designed scroll key; unintuitive contact-entry system; inferior camera; low-volume speakerphone.
The bottom line: Although the 3220 includes a VGA camera and a speakerphone, this handset will appeal mostly to those looking for an attractive but fairly basic cell phone.
Specifications: Carrier: T-Mobile; Band / mode: GSM 850/1800/1900 (Tri-Band); Talk time: Up to 210 min; See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 02/09/2005
Nokia is known for its unique keypad designs. Although the layout on the 3220 is conventional, the implementation is no less creative. With the 3220, each dial-pad key holds two characters (the 1 and the 4, the 2 and the 5, and so on) separated by an indentation. Though the keys are tiny, the design does make for easy touch dialing; sending text messages, however, can quickly become tedious. The keys are also brightly backlit in white, so dialing in dark environments isn't a problem. The power button at the top of the handset is among the best we've seen on a Nokia phone. Where you have to strain yourself to push the power button on other Nokia models, this one is easy to press, yet it's firm enough to make it unlikely that you'll turn the phone on or off accidentally.
Four rubber grips on the side of the phone illuminate in red and green when the phone rings and when you're placing a call. If your ring tone doesn't attract attention, the arcadelike flashing lights certainly will--you can turn them off, however. The grips do provide a more secure feel, and you can swap them out, as you can the faceplate as well. We liked the eye-catching blue cover that's included, but more colors are available ($14.95) from Nokia or you can design your own paper faceplate as with the Nokia 3200. The camera lens is on the back of the mobile, but there's no flash or mirror for self-portraits.
The Nokia 3220 offers a fairly basic set of features. The 500-entry phone book supports multiple fields per contact (with an additional 250 names on the SIM card), but it's a bit of a hassle to add that information. After entering a contact name and number, you then have to save that information as the default number before returning to the contact list to add extra details such as Web and e-mail addresses or call groups. It would be easier to enter all of this information at once. Contacts can be organized into caller groups or be paired with a picture or any of seven polyphonic ring tones.Additionally, the handset includes a vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, a WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser (with support for GPRS/EDGE data speeds), a voice recorder, a calendar that holds as many as 100 entries and can be synced with a PC, a speakerphone, an alarm clock, a countdown timer, a stopwatch, and support for AOL instant messaging. One nice feature is the automatic volume control, which adjusts the speaker level to ambient background noise. This feature worked well, increasing the volume when we moved outside or when we manually set the volume too low.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 74 reviews
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